Bangladesh must create skilled manpower in information technology alongside building a positive image globally, said Syed Almas Kabir, the new president of Bangladesh Association for Software and Information Services or BASIS.

Kabir elected for three years shared his plans with bdnews24.com in an interview on Monday.

His panel ‘Team Horizon’ won most of the positions in the executive council of BASIS despite complications in the election process.

Kabir, owner of Metronet Bangladesh, has been holding the position since Mustafa Jabbar left it after he became the telecom and information technology minister.

However, the recent election in BASIS was uncertain as the commerce ministry had halted the election due to a breach of rules by few BASIS directors and members.

Later Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed and ICT Minister Mustafa Jabbar later stepped in, clearing the way for the election.

Recently, a series of issues, including feuds among directors and graft cases, cropped up in the days to the election.

“We are all in the same team now as the election results have been out,” said Kabir when asked for his reaction on the issues.

“We are yet to receive the audit report from the last committee, and therefore, cannot make any comment now,” he said when asked about the graft cases in BASIS.

Kabir’s Team Horizon mentioned ‘growth ecosystem’ as its election slogan.

“We mentioned the ecosystem as we want to create a support system for the skilled manpower in the IT sector," said Kabir.

"We want to create an environment for small enterprises facilitating them in management process, marketing, human resource development, legal assistance and financial support," he said.

He promised to serve the interests of small entrepreneurs by creating this ‘support system’.

"Our members will get immediate benefits once we create this support system," he added.

Kabir stressed branding Bangladesh in a positive way. He said the focus should be on 'skilled manpower rather than 'cheap manpower’.

"Tagging Bangladesh with 'cheap labour' as in the garment sector will not bring any benefit in the long run," said Kabir.

He admitted the lack of data to understand the technology market in the country.

"There is no real data that gives us information on the local market size or the number of workers in it. We will publish a report after market research which may change the course of our action plan in future," Kabir said.

He said the research report will provide an overall picture of the information technology sector. It will also include details on the possibility of a suitable investment environment.

"Skilled manpower will be our main focus in the research as it is the most important factor in the present market. If we can develop the manpower in the IT sector, Bangladesh can move to a better position in five years," he said.

Kabir urged the government to reduce internet prices by 50 percent for BASIS members, which he believes will enable them to export more services.

Kabir stressed running special programmes to enable computer science and engineering students from universities to enter the job market easily.

Having experiences of 12 years in teaching computer science and engineering, Kabir said BASIS began its work to include 'job-oriented education' in the syllabus.